LT-Innovate Summit 2012: 31 Showcases & 6 Innovation Focus sessions

Innovation Focus Sessions

LT stakeholders demonstrated the potential for innovation in LT in the following fields: iEnterprise, iServices, iHealth, iHelpers and iSkills. During the last Innovation Focus Session “Innovative Partnering and Collaborative Projects”, Mr Kimmo Rossi, representative of DG INFSO of the European Commission, presented future opportunities for further development of the LT sector through upcoming Calls for Proposals, within the FP7 programme. 

LT-Innovate Showcases

36 LT companies presented their activities in front of an audience and an Expert Jury. Having previously completed an online profile, LT-Innovate Award applicants made an onsite presentation of 8 minutes followed by 7 minutes of Q & A from the audience. An Expert Jury rated each presentation based on the following criteria: innovativeness - business potential - team experience - competitive position - investment or partnering interest - project profile quality. Based on the results of the Jury’s evaluation, the winners of the LT-Innovate Awards 2012 were designated and celebrated at the Award Ceremony and Gala Dinner.

More information about the companies.

The Expert Jury

The Expert Jury was composed of major players involved in LT with a solid background and experience in the development of innovative practices in the LT arena. The Expert Jury rated each presentation based on the following criteria: Innovativeness - Business potential - Team experience - Competitive position - Investment or partnering interest - Project profile quality. The 12 best presentations received the LT-Innovate Award during the Award Ceremony.

More information about the Jury.

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Earnest D. Paylor II from WorldTech International

Dr. Paylor is President of WorldTech International, LLC. Prior to this, he was CTO and Vice President of WorldTech, Inc, the Program Director and Senior Advisor for Interagency Programs in the Office of the Special Assistant and NASA Liaison to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration. Additionally, as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientist and program manager, he provided scientific leadership for a number of successful international space-borne and airborne science missions, and research and development programs. His record also includes national and international liaison and senior policy advisor/committee roles, and the development and oversight of internationally recognized centers of excellence for science and technology. He holds a Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. 

WorldTech International is a unique information service and systems development company that specializes in international technology scouting, intelligence, and assessments. The intent is to bring new, innovative technologies to the attention of public and private sector customers, Government agencies in particular, for the purpose of research funding, licensing or purchase to fulfill mission needs. Additionally WTI creates technology knowledge portals enabling customers to identify technologies (or companies) that meet their requirements; the New Technology Opportunity Network (NEWTON) is the premier product in this regard. WorldTech International has a growing network of partners and SME’s throughout the world, including Europe, Australia, Asia/South Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012. 

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Tom Tourwé from Sirris

Tom is a software & ICT researcher and technology advisor at Sirris. He is particularly interested in large-scale data processing & analysis and context-sensitive & pro-active decision support technologies. He participates in several European industry-driven R&D projects on these topics. Before joining Sirris, Tom obtained his PhD degree from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium in 2001, was a post-doctoral researcher at the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands until 2006, and was an assistant professor at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), The Netherlands in 2007.

Sirris, the collective centre of the Belgian technology industry, helps companies to introduce technological innovation enabling them to strengthen their competitive position. 

Sirris, the joint research centre for the technology industry in Belgium, is a private collective research centre founded in 1949 by Agoria, the multi-sector federation for the Belgian technology industry. SIRRIS has about 2500 member companies, which range from small and medium-sized businesses to multinational companies (>95% SME’s), active in 13 technological sectors including Information & Communication Technology. Its mission is to improve the competitiveness of its member companies through technology and innovation. Sirris has currently 140 employees focusing on knowledge acquisition (applied research), knowledge transfer (industrial projects) and awareness creation.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Marcus Polke from Acton Capital Partners

Marcus Polke is an Investment Director at Acton Capital Partners. He contributes in-depth operational expertise in the online and particularly e-commerce business to the Acton team. In 2007, Marcus joined Burda Digital Ventures (BDV) - the corporate venture team at global media company Hubert Burda Media, who were to found Acton Capital Partners soon after. Prior to that. he was a Managing Director of BDV's portfolio company AbeBooks Europe (2005-2007), which was in 2008 sold to Amazon. Between 2001 and 2005 he led all e-commerce activities at AOL Germany. From 1998-2001, Marcus was one of Amazon.de's first employees, building up product management and leading two product lines. He started his career at German media company Axel Springer after obtaining a degree in Economics and Management at the Technical University of Berlin and completing a banking apprenticeship at Berliner Bank AG.

Acton Capital Partners is a Munich based investment firm investing in consumer-oriented businesses within internet and wireless. Currently Acton Capital is managing two funds: The first fund comprises the former Burda Digital Ventures portfolio. The second fund targets later stage companies with an established track record. In this fund Acton is looking for internet and mobile companies which want to take their growth opportunities to the next level, primarily in Europe but as well abroad.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Gerhard Budin from The Center for Translation Studies

Gerhard Budin is full professor for terminology studies and translation technologies at the Centre of Translation Studies (CTS) at the University of Vienna. He is director of the Institute for Corpus Linguistics and Text Technology (ICLTT) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a member (kM) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is Chair holder of the UNESCO Chair for Multilingual, Transcultural Communication in the Digital Age. His research interests and areas of teaching include language technologies, corpus linguistics, and knowledge engineering, E-Learning technologies, distributed digital research environments, terminology studies, ontology engineering, cognitive systems, cross-cultural knowledge communication and knowledge organization. For the last 25 years Gerhard Budin has been active in national, European, and international research projects in the areas mentioned above. Gerhard Budin is Chair of a technical sub-committee in the International Standards Organization (ISO).

The Center for Translation Studies engages in research and teaching across all forms of professionally produced communication across linguistic and cultural barriers. Translation Studies as an interdisciplinary oriented research specialist and taught in the subareas * Translation Studies * Interpreting * Terminology and science * Cross-cultural communication.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Luis Galveias from EBAN

Luis Galveias is project manager of EBAN, the European trade body for early stage investors since 2010. Previously Luis was based in Lisbon working for the venture catalyst Gesventure, the Business Angel Club and the national federation of business angels FNABA. Luis Galveias is the Project Manager for EBAN. Working mostly on the ACCESS ICT( ICT Finance MarketPlace initiative, he also supports EBAN's research projects and events. Luis has been working in the early stage financing industry since 2004 when he joined the Portuguese venture catalyst Gesventure, the Business Angels Club and the national business angels federation FNABA. He has been involved with a wide range of national and international initiatives such as the National Business Angels Week (FNABA), the EBAN Congress 2007, the Business Angels Leaders Forum (kick-start for WBAA) and the EASY Project. Currently living in Luxembourg, his academic background is in Economics and holds a Master in Marketing.

Established in 1999 by a group of pioneer angel networks in Europe with the collaboration of the European Commission and EURADA, EBAN reaches out to 300 groups, 20.000 angels and 40.000 entrepreneurs. EBAN serves business angels, business angel networks, seed funds and other early stage investment professionals across Europe through the following pillars of activity:

• Stay on top of trends in the early stage investment market in Europe
• Build new relationships, new business opportunities by networking with peers across borders.
• Get answers to day-to-day challenges: don’t reinvent the wheel, we might have the solution!
• Access our resource center and get ongoing capacity building opportunities
• Be represented under one voice representing the interests of early stage investors near European policy makers.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Jury Member Profile for LT-Innovate Awards: Hans Rijckenberg from Sapience

Hans Rijckenberg is professionally active since 1988 in the fields of policy innovation, knowledge transfer and regional development. The European Commission has been inviting him for multiple projects, evaluations and assignments. Recently he has been working as Secretary General of ProTon Europe. In 2010 he was appointed as Member of the European Expert Panel on Service Innovation and Panel Representative for the theme Smart Economic Growth. 

Sapience ’00 BV is a private consultancy company that is specialized in innovation policy evaluation, knowledge transfer services and regional economic development. Through our experience and holistic approach we are invited to provide strategic advice for inventors, innovators and investors. Our customer base represents a range of international clients amongst whom the European Commission, national ministries, urban and regional development organizations, science and technology parks, innovation agencies, public research organizations, knowledge transfer associations, corporate laboratories, start-up and spin-off companies, venture capitalists, private equity, as well as non-profit and charity organizations.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Jury Member for LT-Innovate Awards: Arturo Quintero from Moravia

Arturo Quintero is co-owner and Chief Corporate Strategist at Moravia IT, a provider of localization and testing services for the IT industry. Moravia's HQ is located in Brno, Czech Republic, with worldwide offices in the USA, Asia and across Europe. Arturo has been an active member of the industry for many years and has had direct involvement in many industry initiatives and events. Currently he is a member of the board of directors of TILP, the Institute of Localization Professionals in Ireland and helps other non-profit associations in an advisory role. Arturo's company was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2000 by Ernst and Young in the Czech Republic, based on the company's outstanding results. Arturo was born in Mexico, studied Astronomy in Krakow, Poland, and currently lives and works in the Czech Republic. 

Moravia Worldwide is a leading globalization solution provider, enabling companies in the information technology, e-learning, and life sciences industries to enter global markets with high quality multilingual products. Moravia's solutions include localization, product testing, internationalization, multilingual publishing, technical translation, content creation, machine translation, and workflow consulting. Moravia Worldwide maintains global headquarters in the Czech Republic and North American headquarters in California, with local offices and production centers in Japan, China, Latin America, Ireland, USA and throughout Europe.

More information about the Jury Members for LT-Innovate Awards 2012.

Intel Capital to attend the LT-Innovate Summit – 19th June in Brussels

Stephane Goubau, director at Intel Capital, Western European Region, will attend the LT-Innovate Summit in Brussels as expert jury member to rate the showcasing companies presenting that day. 

Mr. Goubau’s has under his investment scope the Nordics, Benelux and Southern Europe. Together with his team he focuses on building a portfolio of high tech investments supporting Intel’s Strategies. Goubau joined Intel in 1992 as Vice-President Dialogic Corporation & General Manager EMEA, which was subsequently acquired by Intel Corporation (1999). Following the acquisition, he was responsible for the Marketing of Intel’s Communications Group product lines across Europe before joining Intel Capital in June 2002. Goubau has more than 15 years experience in senior management positions within IT and engineering companies across Europe and the US.  

More information about Intel’s participation and other jury experts

To follow tweets about LT-innovate Summit : #LTI2012